The aim of this small documentary book is to initiate a discussion which
will, hopefully, clarify which camp of the encyclopedias presents the early
history of Transylvania correctly and which may be in error. At stake is the
provision of reliable information as is expected of all encyclopedias.

Since 1920, the year in which that portion of the Peace Treaty of Versailles
which concerned Hungary was signed in the Trianon Palace, people interested in
history, especially European history, have witnessed a strange confrontation
among the writers of encyclopedia articles dealing with the early history of
Transylvania which area had been allotted by the Great Entente Powers of WWI to
the Kingdom of Rumania. For a while after 1920 almost all encyclopedias
persevered with the traditional description as presented by the non-Rumanian
encyclopedias until 1920. Then gradually a slow change began to take place,
which became momentous after 1947, the year in which, as a result of WWII, the
Paris Peace Treaty restituted the whole of Transylvania to Rumania.

In the 1888 Edinburgh printing of the Encyclopedia Britannica we
find, with respect to the composition of Transylvania's population, the
following relevant sentence:

,,.... by far the most numerous element, though long excluded from power and
political equality, is formed by the Walachians or Romanians, 1,146,611 in
number, a mixed race, not entitled to the descent which they claim from the
early Roman colonists of Dacia,, (emphasis added).

At this juncture some preliminary explanation is called for. The 1893
Americanized Encyclopedia Britannica (Chicago) has the same statement.
The 1895 edition offers a long article under the entry ,,VLACHS" (which ethnic
name has variants like Wallachian, Walachian and Wallack). There
we read, inter alia:

,,Vlach, otherwise written Wallack, is a general name for all the members of
the Latin-speaking race inhabiting eastern Europe,,(....) ,,the name is of
foreign origin, the native Vlachs continuing to this day to call themselves
'Rumeni', 'Romeni' or even 'Romani'; and it is from the native
pronunciation of the Roman name that we have the equivalent expression
Rouman, a word which must by no means be confined to that part of the
Vlach race inhabiting the present kingdom of Roumania."

,,The centre of gravity of the Vlach or Rouman race is at present
unquestionably north of the Danube, and corresponds roughly to the limits of
Trajan's Dacian province. From this circumstance the popular idea has arisen
that the race itself represents the descendants of the Romanized population of
Trajan's Dacia which was assumed to have maintained an unbroken existence in
Walachia, Transylvania, &c., beneath the dominion of a succession of
invaders" (emphasis added).

The popular idea mentioned above has grown into the now fairly well
popularized Daco-Roman theory, ardently promoted by the reign of the
late Nicolae Ceausescu, which is at the bottom of the Rumanians' historically
based claim to Transylvania and surrounding areas.

After the formation of the said popular idea, there arose a long series
of scientific discussions on its origin and consequences, for it implied, among
other things, that the Wallachians of the Pindus area (in Greece) and in other
southern regions of the Balkan Peninsula had migrated south from the present
centre of the Wallachian race. As will be seen later on, the historical,
archaeological and linguistic evidence makes that proposal questionable.

The said popular idea and its manifold shoots have influenced a number
of encyclopedias. To illustrate, we now quote (in translation) from the West
GermanMeyers Grosses Taschenlexikon (1981):

,,Since the beginning of the 10th century, there (i.e., on the soil of what is
now known as Transylvania) arose small principalities of the autochthonous
Rumanian population which, from the early 11th century on, succumbed to the
Magyars/Hungarians. magyars, Transylvanian Saxons (since approx. 1150) and the
Order of the Teutonic Knights (between 1211 and 1225 in Burzenland) were
settled there...."

It is not specified when the ,,autochthonous Rumanian population"
(,,einheimische rumänische Bevölkerun"G) had lived in the area in
question. However, the 1889 edition of Meyers Konversations-Lexikon
already stated the following (in translation):

,,The remnants of the Daco-Romans, the Rumanians or Wallachians, who had stayed
behind particularly in the mountains, received later, since the 12th and 13th
centuries, reinforcements by means of large groups of newcomers from among
their tribal relations then living south of the Danube."

It is well known from Roman history that around 270 A.D., but by 275 at the
latest, on the command of Emperor Aurelian, the entire population and military
planted in Provincia Dacia had been withdrawn and settled south of the
Danube in what later became Bulgaria. In abandoned Provincia Dacia all
dwellings, public buildings, aqueducts, bridges, mines etc. had to be destroyed
lest they be used by the Goths who had made their irruptions for decades.

Meyers Konversations-Lexikon asserts that ,,remnants of the Daco-Romans,
the Rumanians or Wallachians,,, i.e., a population which is said to have arisen
from the intermarriage of the defeated Dacians and the victorious Romans,
stayed behind. Meyers Grosses Taschenlexikon seems to build on that
assertion; moreover, it must have assumed that those ,,remnants" flourished
over the centuries and had, by the early 10th century, their own ,,small
principalities".

As we have seen, in the 1880's and 1890's the Encyclopedia Britannica
firmly denied the claim of the Rumanians living in the Kingdom of Rumania, and
in that eastern part of the Kingdom of Hungary which is now generally referred
to as Transylvania, that they could rightfully call themselves the descendants
of the ,,early Roman colonists of Dacia,,. The conflict in this regard between
the Encyclopedia Britannica and the other two named sources is quite
evident. One may well ask: were the Rumanians in 1981 more entitled to roman,
or Daco-roman, descent than back in 1888?

Were there any relevant historical, archaeological, linguistic or other
scientific discoveries made prior to 1889 which would have supported the quoted
categorical statement of Meyers Konversations-Lexikon of that year? Or
did the writer of the quoted article rely on the popular idea so facile
and so conducive to build theories on?

The diametrically opposing views presented by the named British and German
encyclopedias foreshadow the controversy surrounding the so called Daco-roman
theory.

In the present book, a random sampling of encyclopedias (as they could be
received in and into Australia) has been presented from the point of view of
their description or other treatment of the early history of Transylvania.

A marking has been effected according to the acceptance or rejection or
ignoring of the Daco-roman theory before and after 1920. Relevant sentences or
sections have been quoted -- in English translation, where necessary -- from
each encyclopedia treating of the early History of Transylvania (non-treatment
is also noted). For the benefit of non-specialists some explanatory remarks
have been added. Also, a listing of works, by no means exhaustive, scrutinizing
the Daco-roman theory has been incorporated, with emphasis on those which have
been found by recent scholarship to have essentially withstood criticism over
the years. Some quotes and/or extracts have been provided.

In order to throw the spotlight on the conflicting views and to allow the
reader to form his or her judgment on the validity of the Daco-roman theory
on the basis of which official Rumania claims historical right to Transylvania,
even to further large portions of the once very extensive Dacian and roman
empires in and outside of the Carpathian Basin, we presented a series of
questions for consideration, questions which hitherto have not been clearly put
to, and answered by, a number of writers of articles on Transylvania and/or
Rumania.

Surely now, after the collapse of dictatorial regimes in Hungary, Poland,
Czecho-Slovakia, East Germany, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Rumania, Bulgaria,
Albania, and following the disintegration of the SovietRussian and Yugoslavian
conglomerates, the time has arrived, especially in Europe, for a thorough
revision of the historiographies of a number of areas. To allow questionable
notions to be printed in encyclopedias without due warning as to their validity
would be unforgivable from the point of view of intellectual honesty. To
contribute even by default, to the deprivation of millions of people of their
basic individual and ethnic rights on the ground of questionable historical
claims after the collapse of regimes which have kept those people in abject
servitude for many decades would be just as unforgivable.

The question ,,Wallachian/Rumanian homeland since 70 B.C.?" in the title of
this book refers to the fact that in 1980, when The 15th International Congress on Historical Sciences was held in Bucharest, at the behest of its
,,high Patron", his Excellency Nicolae Ceausescu, the President of the
Socialist Republic of Romania,,, President of the Academy of Sciences (Academia
Republicii Socialiste Romania), extraordinary propaganda activity was exerted
throughout the world to disseminate the news that the year 1980 marked the
2,050th anniversary of the birth of Rumanian statehood on the soil of
Transylvania. That birth of statehood is said to have been the beginning of the
reign of the Dacian king Burebista (?70-44 B.C.). Many people wondered why back
in 1930 no mention whatever had been made of the surely more momentous 2,000th
anniversary? (The relevant reproductions are from a leaflet containing the
program of The 15thInternational Congress on Historical Sciences.)

Dr. Lajos Kazár

Department of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, The
Australian National University. G.P.O. Box 4. Canberra, A.C.T. 2601.
Australia